A wide variety of hand-held cutting tools are known in the art. Many of these tools feature an opening in the body of the tool for receiving a pipe or tube to be cut. Upon receipt of the pipe within the opening, a blade is urged against the pipe for subsequent cutting.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 823,796 to Leyes is directed to a pipe cutter having a pipe-encircling cylindrical sleeve. A spring loaded blade is radially urged against the outer surface of a pipe to be cut. The '796 patent uses a blade arrangement in which the blade is held outside of the housing and contacted with a region of pipe external to the housing.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,734,982 to Khoja is directed to a plastic pipe cutter. The tool is used by inserting a pipe into a hole in the body of the cutter and tightening a nut to urge a blade against the outer surface of the pipe. The blade is retained within a slot in the housing of the tool.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,146,959 to Hopper describes a device for cutting a cylindrical article. In like fashion with the previously discussed '796 patent, the blade cuts within a plane that is external to a tubular support.
Although satisfactory in many respects, these tools have limited application since they can only be used for cutting a single size or relatively small range of sizes of pipes or tubes. Furthermore, these tools provide only limited support of the pipe or tube during cutting as a result of the blade pressing against, and thus detrimentally deforming, the pipe wall during cutting. In addition, for tools having support stabilization guides spaced about the pipe to prevent such deformation, such guides typically obstruct viewing of the cutting interface. Moreover, previously known cutting tools of this type are typically only equipped with knife-style cutting blades, thereby limiting their application and use.
Therefore, a need remains in the art for a cutting tool having one or more, and preferably two or more, openings in the body of the tool in order to accommodate different sizes of pipes or tubing. Moreover, a need exists for such a tool with provisions that promote stabilization of the pipe during cutting yet which do not interfere with viewing and general access to the cutting interface. In addition, a need remains in the art for such a cutting tool, in which the tool features one or more blades or implements that can perform other functions in addition to just cutting.